About Me

70 now and our five wonderful years aboard our narrowboat Skyy seem along time ago. Jacquie, allowed me to build my replica three wheeler kit car, which was a great success. Now it's time to start on a bigger project and that is to make a good Triumph Stag even better, here goes.

Saturday, 31 July 2010

UNSATURATED YORK

SATURDAY 24TH JULY 2010

Our companions this morning was The Falcon a narrow boat and a very wide beam boat. All of us were up and about at 5.30am on this still clear morning. Three dogs including Duggie would be doing the trip and as there would be no stopping until Naburn Lock, fourteen miles upstream it was important that we were all comfortable before we set off. At six am on the dot, Fred waved just the two narrow boats into the lock, the wide beam would have to follow through on her own. The river beyond the lock was flowing swiftly upstream, an improvement on the previous two days when regardless of the state of tide, the flow was always downstream, swollen with flood water.

Both boats were immediately swept left as we exited the lock, The Falcon lead the way as we lined up for the right hand arch of the two swing bridges. There would be another swing bridge eight miles up, but we needn’t worry about having them swung for us. There are some tight bends and it is important to keep to the out side of each bend and to stay in the strong flow, not let the bow drift into slack water, it has been known for boats to execute a 360 deg. turn if they do.The weather conditions were perfect, almost the same as going down The Thames last year and the tidal effect gradually subsided and our surroundings were very pleasant. We were surprised to be waved at by the swing bridge-keeper at Cawood, why was he there? Our query was answered when around the corner came a mighty power boat with a high flying deck and a bow wave to match, obviously going considerable faster than the regulation ten knots, He did slow down when to his surprise he saw us, but his reducing bow wave did add a little excitement to the trip. He was followed by an assortment of smaller river boats all keen to blow the cobwebs out of their engines, but fortunately the river is wide enough to accommodate us all.

There was a slight delay as we waited for the next batch of boats to be let out of Naburn Lock and we gasped at the amount of brown water that was spewing over the nearby weir. SKYY and The Falcon were waved into the lock and shortly after at about nine thirty, moored in the safety of the lock cut we enjoyed a mega cooked breakfast.

The centre of York is about another five miles and on our way we past the Bishop of York Palace and then the Blue Bridge, marking the entrance to the River Foss, wharves followed and then sight of The Minster and other grand riverside buildings.

At half past twelve we arrived, unlike Thursday, the moorings were now above water but were all taken, we slid in beside an unmanned narrow boat and within minutes a river cruiser slipped her moorings and we dropped back into the vacated slot, lovely!! After lunch and in the warm sunshine we set of again to wander around this lovely and relatively compact City, finishing the day with a good meal in the Bay Horse pub, just up to the left of the Museum Gardens.